I guess the Wii and DS aren't printing as much money as they used to. Engadget has an
interesting piece up about Nintendo's latest losses. Apparently they've had a $25 million loss, a first for the company in seven years. The culprit?
Wii and
DS sales are bottoming out. I'm sure some analysts are treating this like some major comeuppance as the giant falls, but really, who didn't see this coming? They just announced the 3DS so that explains why people wouldn't buy the rather frivolous DSi XL, and most people already have a DS or DS Lite. Ditto for the Wii--the market is saturated with over 70 millions Wii consoles out there. With all the shovelware on the Wii I'm not surprised its sales are petering out a bit early, but it is a shame to see it slowing down now,
This has been one of the Wii's strongest years, with
Mario Galaxy 2, Kirby's Epic Yarn, Donkey Kong Country Returns and
Metroid Other M all in 2010, not to mention some very strong third party support bringing
CoD Black Ops, Lost in Shadows, Epic Mickey and the excellent new
GoldenEye 007. We're also getting
Conduit 2 at the beginning of February, and by all accounts that game is really shaping up. It's too bad that people are losing interest during the best time to own a Wii. Hopefully this strong lineup of games and the new red colored Wii will get people excited again, but with the tidal wave of mediocre party and fitness games drowning out the good stuff I fear most people won't give the console the second look it deserves.
